Here God sends the angel Gabriel to tell Mary that she will become pregnant and give birth to a child. This will not be an ordinary child. As the Son of the Most High, he will be divine. And since he will be born through a woman, he will be human as well. He will be the incarnation of deity. According to God’s promise, he will take permanent possession of the throne of David. And unlike those who prefigured him, this king will never die, and his kingdom will never fall.

Mary is perplexed. She does not ask about this Son of the Most High, or the throne of David, or the permanence of the kingdom. But she says, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” In times past, God enabled barren women to conceive, and he made Abraham and Sarah fertile in their old age. However, to conceive without a man is something that has never been done. It is without precedent even in the records of the acts of God.

Gabriel begins with a relatively concrete answer: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” It is not a detailed or a mechanical explanation, but he makes it clear that this will be an act of divine power, with specific reference to the Holy Spirit’s role. He also tells Mary about Elizabeth, who has been pregnant for six months by this time, although she was barren. Then, the angel appeals to a basic principle that covers both events: “For nothing is impossible with God.”

This shows us something about the method and the content of his thinking. The plan of salvation now overlaps with a question on biology, or on a more basic level, a question on possibility. To address this, Gabriel first mentions what God is about to do and what God has already done. Although this is significant, his final appeal is made not to the past and future history of God’s acts, but to his knowledge of God’s nature, stated in a proposition that is broad and abstract, and that is intelligible even apart from the history of divine actions. It is not dependent on the history of redemption; rather, the history of redemption is explained by it and dependent on it. As for the content, it is simply this: “For nothing is impossible with God.” This is excellent theology.

Objections against divine omnipotence commit categorical fallacies, among other things. “Can God create a rock so big or heavy that he cannot lift?” is an overused challenge, but it comes in different forms, and it illustrates the failure of other attempts. It is also a fair teaching device, since it offers the opportunity to follow Gabriel in his appeal to a basic axiom on the divine nature. That is, the Bible teaches that “God is spirit”; therefore, size, weight, and other physical properties do not apply to him, and when he moves a rock, he does not “lift” it. The challenge commits a categorical error, and reflects the usual ignorance of non-Christians.

Then, it is asked whether God can perform a contradiction, as in, “Can God create a square circle?” This is answered by noting the nature of a contradiction, so that because a contradiction is what it is, this attempt also commits a categorical fallacy. A contradiction is in fact nothing. This is often obscured by the fact that we can still say it. To illustrate that we can utter meaningless sentences, suppose I ask, “Can God walk a cat wrench omelet door super?” Even I do not know what this means. I cannot conceive of a cat wrench omelet door super, nor do I know if it is something to be walked. I can state the question, but it is meaningless, and because it is meaningless, it is not a question that applies to God’s ability. Likewise, although we can say nonsense like “a square circle” or “a rock that is not a rock,” these are nothing. They are not things to be created, nor does anyone who talks about them know what they mean. We maintain that divine omnipotence is a coherent concept and reality.

When man abandons the axioms of revelation, or the basic propositions about God’s nature, power, and wisdom, his intellect falls from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell. Now his thinking takes after the animals rather than the angels, and he strives more and more to become stupid. When confronted with questions on possibility, he appeals to his sensations, observations, experimentations, and such things. This places a false, artificial, and narrow limit on what he could consider as possible – not because reality is as narrow as the non-Christian thinks, but because his mind is so small and his intelligence so feeble. Without true and basic axioms to anchor his system, and without sound methods to guide his thinking, all his science and philosophy are false, and are the products of arbitrary conjecture and speculation. All his arguments are fallacious, and his learning consists of fantasies instead of discoveries.

True religion first concerns itself, not with man’s dignity and progress, but with God’s majesty and power. This is a condemnation against all the philosophies of men, and many theological schools and traditions. It may seem obvious that, when we think about God, we ought to assume that he can do all things, and that this basic principle should determine our idea of what is possible. But this is not obvious to everyone. Rather than beginning with God’s power, there are those who begin their thinking, even when it comes to theology, with what they regard as men’s abilities, discoveries, and experiences. I say “what they regard,” because they are always mistaken even about men’s abilities, discoveries, and experiences.

God is the foundation of theology, and once this is established, the rest of the doctrines are affirmed without any strain or contradiction. These are doctrines such as the inspiration, preservation, and canonization of Scripture, the creation of man and the world, the resurrection of Christ and of his people, and the predestination of individuals for heaven and hell. As Paul said, “Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” (Acts 26:8). And Jeremiah said, “Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17). The foundation for these statements is that nothing is impossible with God.

Gabriel’s final appeal is to a principle about the eternal nature and power of God, and not to the history of redemption or to the progress of revelation. The teaching and its application cannot be restricted by eras and epochs. God can do anything he wants at anytime he wants to do it. If he does nothing, we cannot make him do something. If he does something, we cannot stop him.

Let no one trouble you, therefore, with doctrines that impose fabricated limitations on God’s sovereignty and omnipotence. We can have confidence in the doctrines of the Christian faith. They are immune to refutations that are based on non-Christian axioms and concepts of possibility. And as God is both transcendent and immanent, we can have confidence in God’s ability to care, to protect, and to fulfill his many precious promises in our lives.